30/06/2012

Two English hackers yesterday admitted
infiltrating Jean Michel Jarre's electronic instruments mid-concert and
replacing his music with a German oom-pah-pah beat.

Ryan Cleary, 20, and Jake Davis, 19, pleaded guilty to Interfering
With The Beats of An Established Recording Artist At The Height of His
Powers, a crime that carries a minimum sentence of seven years.

Jarre's concert in Paris was thrown into chaos in 2009 when the two
hacked into his set and swapped it for a series of fast-paced
traditional German tunes.

CCTV footage shows waves of confused concert-goers at first bouncing
to Jarre's music before violently dipping their knees and bobbing up and
down as the oom-pah-pah kicks in.

Dozens of members of the public were treated for heat exhaustion as
the pace became increasingly frantic and people were knocked over.

The pioneer of electronic music put his hands on his head in horror
and was heard to shout: "My synths, my ice-cold synths. What have you
done?"

He attempted to switch to a stand-by keyboard but found that instead
of it being loaded with his own tracks, it merely played a traditional
bossa nova beat recorded on a Bontempi organ.

The hackers also tampered with a back-projected film made for the
concert, replacing an artfully directed montage of ice floes and
rainforests with a screening of the Ted Danson film Getting Even With Dad.

Cleary and Davis have also pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to
plotting to bring down high-profile websites and hack into the
computers of government agencies, media companies and IT security firms.

Jarre is also suing the Britons, whom he says wiped out his entire
back catalogue on the night of the gig, leaving him only with Bavarian
ditties to play at gigs.

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Jean Michel Jarre first came to international fame with his number one hit album, « OXYGENE » which went on to sell over 18 million copies worldwide.

A pioneer in his field, Jarre has largely contributed to the fastest growing musical revolution of the 20th century, electronic music : conceiving music in terms of sounds rather than only in terms of notes, and thus allowing the composer to become his own craftsman.

Having followed formal studies of harmony and counterpoint at the Conservatoire de Paris, he was inspired to reinvent music at its core, with his own singular vision, deploying the technology and tools of his epoch.

This pioneering approach gave birth to worldwide hit albums such as "OXYGENE","EQUINOXE", MAGNETIC FIELDS", "ZOOLOOK", "RENDEZVOUS", "WAITING FOR COUSTEAU"...over 80 million albums sold to date.

Following through with his revolution in music, he also conceived a brand-new genre and format of concerts; breaking away from the traditional theatre and arena context, Jarre brought his music and vision outdoors to the masses. Often free and open-to-all, these stateof- the-art concert-spectaculars showcase the natural or urban environment in which they are performed -- a truly singular sonic and visual "land-art" event, conceived and performed on a unique scale for a one-off experience.

Jarre's legendary concerts have attracted Guinness Record-breaking audiences across the planet. They take place in exceptional settings, marking extra-ordinary contexts: first western musician invited to perform in post-Mao Red China, Millennium at the Great Pyramids of Egypt, Houston City concert in collaboration with NASA in memory of the Challenger space crew, Concert for His Holiness Pope John Paul II, France's Eiffel Tower in celebration of World Cup victory, Gdansk's shipyard at the initiative of Nobel Peace Laureate Lech Walesa, London's Docklands, Beijing's Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, the Sahara Desert...to the absolute record live audience of 3.5 million in Moscow.

Most recently, Jean Michel Jarre embarked on his first ever world tour which has already taken him to over 30 countries with over 220 performances.

July 2011, HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco called upon Jean Michel Jarre to celebrate his Royal Wedding by creating and performing a concert-event in the Principality which was largely broadcast on television & Internet worldwide to an estimated audience of 3 billion.

The French musician has a dedicated ongoing engagement to the United Nations via UNESCO, as Ambassador and spokesperson for Environment and Education.